Enter Tom upon our stage, near future, late afternoon:


Tom gets off work at 5pm and rushes to the supermarket, as it is only open between the hours of 5pm and 6pm; this is because, he’s been told, there’s so much shoplifting outside of that time, although lately there’s apparently been shoplifting during those times as well (which makes sense, the thieves come into the store when it’s open), so there are rumors the store will shut down entirely to those who wish to shop in person, leaving it only to those rich enough to not care about delivery fees or who buy enough groceries to qualify for free pick-up from the store to be able to get food; those others who don’t buy enough at one time are probably the thieving poor anyway, or worse, immigrants (whom we’ve been told are the thieving poor, or criminals, or otherwise horrible people, never mind that most of us come from immigrants, too. But then, it’s possible the indigenous peoples would consider our ancestors to be thieves and criminals as well. But I digress ...).

Once at the store, Tom must shop carefully, for he must pay at the end of each aisle for the items he’s picked up in that aisle. Never mind store-wide discounts triggered by buying multiple items; these are impossible anyway, but the store leaves the tags on the items as incentives to get you to come in, to pick things up. There’s a way to go to customer service to get the money off your total bill, but Tom doesn’t have time for that, and anyway the store would close before he ever got there.

This end-of-aisle payment is now made easier by the store auto-scanning your items and your credit as you leave the aisle, but there’s always some idiot who only has cash, or whose scan card is on the blink, so there’s inevitably a queue in some aisles. Tom has learned to just dump whatever he’s picked up from that aisle and just move to the next. It’s meant he’s been unable to get toothpaste for weeks, though, which has made his upcoming trip to the dentist a bit ... uncomfortable.

All of this is also in aid of stopping those horrible thieves, of course, and damn them for making Tom’s life so hard. If it weren’t for these thieves, invisible though they may be, maybe the store would be open more hours, or possibly even have checkouts like the old days. But no, instead he passes three rows of security and five police cars on his way out to his car, praying he doesn’t look at all suspicious as he leaves ...

(Sadly, this is merely a slight exaggeration. A cyberpunk extrapolation, if you will, of our local supermarket’s reduction to about two-thirds the hours it used to be open, and making you pay for items as you leave the aisles with toothpaste, deodorant, medicine, soap, and so forth. And there really are three security guards and (often) three police cars sitting at the exit. And this is a heavily gentrified/gentrifying neighborhood, yet all these “adjustments” have been made, we are told, because shoplifting is a terrible problem—worse than it has ever been (although the stores were open 24 hours a day for years when the neighborhood was more “run-down”). And apparently I must be a thief because I liked to shop for toothpaste at 2am; or I’m at least one of those “abnormals” who shouldn’t be living in this New and Improved neighborhood anyway. But I rant, I rave, wishing things were like the “old days,” so Tom and I’ll ...)

Exeunt, pursued by a bear.